For individual pages on some authors see list under Authors at left or at the very bottom of this page. Authors who are known for other activities may appear under Activists, Artists, Public Figures, etc. All can be searched by name in the Search box at the lower left of the screen.

Oliver Optic (William Taylor Adams), 1822-1897, writer of hundreds of books and stories for children and pre-teen boys, lived at 1479 Dorchester Avenue.

William Lincoln Anderson, head of the department of Commercial Branches, Dorchester High School. He wrote American Phonography, published in 1905, 1908

Isabel C. Barrows, wife of Rev. Samuel Barrows. She was also a journalist and collaborated in editing The Little Grandmother of the Russian Revolution with Alice Stone Blackwell. She wrote a biography of Samuel J. Barrows.

Samuel J. Barrows, Minister of the First Parish Church and journalist. Elected to the U.S. Congress.

Bellamy, William. He wrote Century of Charades (1895).

Alice Stone Blackwell, activist whose teen-age journal is published as Growing Up in the Gilded Age. She edited The Little Grandmother of the Russian Revolution with Isabel C. Barrows, and she wrote a biography of her mother, Lucy Stone.

Henry Nichols Blake, served in Civil War, served as a judge in Montana. Author of Three Years in the Army of the Potomac (Boston: Lee & Shepard, 1865) Written by a former captain of the Eleventh Regiment of Massachusetts Volunteers and Memoirs of a Many-Sided Man: The Personal Record of a Civil War Veteran, Montana Territorial Editor, Attorney, Jurist. The memoirs of Henry N. Blake written in 1916. Edited by Vivian A. Paladin and published in Montana, the Magazine of Western History, Autumn, 1964.

Karl R. Bossi, former resident. Wrote memoirs of growing up near Upham s Corner with title: Just Call Me Moose!

God The Eternal Support. Sermon by C.D. Bradlee, Pastor of the Church at Harrison Square, Boston, Mass., Preached Sept. 5, 1886, on the First Sunday Service after the Great Earthquake, and after the Death of Nathaniel Tucker, and Sewell E. Faunce.

Poems Third Series 1881.

Nahum Capen, b. 1804. Nahum Capen was a descendant of Bernard Capen who came to Dorchester in 1636. Nahum Capen was a publisher and writer whose firm Marsh, Capen & Lyon brought out books by Nathaniel Hawthorne, Judge Story, Dr. Jacob Bigelow, Edward Everett, Charles W. Upham, Mrs. Stowe and many others. He lived at the estate formerly owned by Thaddeus Mason Harris, named Mt. Ida. His own works include: The Mental Guide; History of Democracy (v. 1, 1874); and Reminscences of Dr. Spurzheim and George Combe.

Jacob Maurice Chyet wrote "From Rovno to Dorchester," published in Lives and Voices: A Collection of 19th and 20th Century American Jewish Memoirs with Drawings of the Times, ed. by Stanley F. Chyet. Philadephia: Jewish Publication Society of America, 1972.

John Codman, minister of Second Church and author.

Captain John Codman, 1814-1900. Captain John Codman was the oldest son of Rev. John Codman and became a ship captain and author. He published widely in Harper s, Century, The North American Review and the Galazy Magazines. His books include Sailor s Life and Sailors Yarn s (1847); Ten Months in Brazil (1867); The Mormon Country (1874); Free Ships (1878); The Round Trip (1879); Winter Sketches from the Saddle (1888); An American Transport in the Crimean War (1896) and numerous others.

Maria Cummins, 1827-1866, novelist. Her works include The Lamplighter, Mabel Vaughan, El Fureidis, and Haunted Hearts.

Johnny Diaz Boston Globe journalist and novelist. His first book, published in 2007, was Boston Boys Club. His second is Miami Manhunt in 2008.

Was on the staff of the Youth s Companion and writer of many short stories and lived at 3 Bowdoin Avenue.

Lawrence Harmon, co-author of Death of an American Jewish Community. A Tragedy of Good Intentions. New York, 1992.
Harmon was born and raised in Dorchester.

Thaddeus Mason Harris, minister of First Church and prolific author of religious and other works.

Holmes, John Haynes, pastor for a short time at the Third Religious Society or First Unitarian Church at Lower Mills. He wrote I speak for myself. The autobiography of John Haynes Holmes. (1959)

Edward Payson Jackson, 1840- , lived at 41 Lyndhurst Street. He was an educator, author, and writer for magazines. His works include Character Building; A Demigod (a novel); and The Earth in Space.

Dennis Lehane, writer of detective fiction.

Gladys Edson Locke, writer of mystery novels set in England. See icon at bottom of this webpage.

Douglas MacKinnon, writer for LA Times and author of two novels: America s Last Days and The Apocalypse Directive (2008)--reviewed by Peter Stidman in Dorchester Reporter July 17, 2008.

Richard Mather, minister of First Church, who contributed to the Cambridge Platform and to the Bay Psalm Book.

James H. Means, minister and author.

Sarah Wentworth Apthorp Morton, 1759-1846, poet.

Sarah s publications include poems contributed to literary magazines. Her first long poem was published in December, 1790, Ouabi: or The Virtues of Nature, An Indian Tale. In Four Cantos. Boston: Isaiah Thomas and Ebenezer Andrews, 1790. Other works include: Beacon Hill. A Local Poem, 1797; The Virtues of Society. A Tale Founded on Fact, 1799; My Mind and Its Thoughts, in Sketches, Fragments, and Essays, 1823.

Christopher Payne

Christopher Payne spent his early years on Ashmont Hill. In 2002 he published: New York s Forgotten Substations: the Power behind the Subway. New York: Princeton Architectural Press, 2002.

Josephine Preston Peabody, 1874-1922.

Peabody was a poet and playwright. See her individual page below.

Frederic Beecher Perkins, 1828-1899, librarian, editor, bibliographer

Grandson of Lyman Beecher and father of Charlotte Stetson. He was a librarian, editor and bibliographer. His works include Scrope or the Lost Library, possibly the first detective novel; Devil-Puzzlers; and Charles Dickens: His Life and Works.

Eugene Richards, 20th-century minister

William Rolfe, editor of Shakespeare.

Francis Russell, historian.

Anthony Mitchell Sammarco, 20th-century local historian, author of many books, perhaps 30 or more in the Images of America series, a few of which show Dorchester subjects.

Charles W. Sawyer, 1868 - descendant of the Bird family and probably the last resident of the Bird homestead, author of books on firearms in American history including Our Rifles, US.S. Single Shot Martial Pistols, and Firearms in American History.

Marcia Sewall, artist, author, and illustrator of at least 45 books for children, many with historical themes.

Robert Louis Sheehan. Writer of Dorchester memoirs. His two books are: Dorchester streets. The story of the Sheehan family in Dorchester, 1921-1943, and A Dorchester Marine s WWII. A Sequel to Dorchester Streets.

Peter Strickland. Ship captain, Consul to West Africa.

His only book is: A Voice from the Deep. Boston, 1873.

Lauralee SummerDorchester resident and teacher in the Boston Public Schools.

Learning Joy from Dogs without Collars. Simon & Schuster, 2003. This is the author s own story of growing up in extreme poverty, on the streets and in welfare housing with her strange and often-unemployed mother. Summer eventually won a scholarship to Harvard University. She writes about her childhood, which includes a stint as the only girl on her high school wrestling team, with no self-pity and only a touch of awe that she survived and thrived.

William D. Swan. Swan was a mason turned school teacher turned publisher. He made a fortune while a teacher writing school textbooks. See separate page for Swan below.

Nathaniel Topliff. He wrote Poems, Moral, Descriptive, and Political. By Nathaniel Topliff, a Farmer of Dorchester. Boston, 1809.

Douglass Shand Tucci, 20th-century architectural historian. His books include: Built in Boston: City & Suburb; Gothic churches of Dorchester. 2 vols; The Second settlement: a case study in the development of Victorian Boston, Ashmont: an historical guide to Peabody Square, Carruth s Hill, and Ashmont Hill and the architecture of Edwin J. Lewis, Jr., and John A. Fox; All Saints, Ashmont: a centennial history; Gothic Churches of Dorchester; Readings in modern Boston History; Church building in Boston, 1720-1970. With an introduction to the work of Ralph Adams Cram and the Boston Gothicists, and Ralph Adams Cram, American medievalist.

Paul Whelton see icon below

Theodore White, 20th-century historian and author

Errol Lincoln Uys, author of Brazil and Riding the Rails, living in Dorchester in the early 21st century.

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here.Created: July 24, 2003 Modified: January 12, 2016